Value Based Selling Part II

I wanted to pick up where I left off in the last article about value based selling.  If you have not yet read that article, I suggest you do so before reading this one.  You can read it HERE.

In this article I would like to focus on 4 very important steps to value based selling.  They are:

1. Give the customer options
2. Continue to build value
3. Focus on the customer’s needs
4. Build a lasting impression

Give the customer options – In the last article I mentioned giving the customer options.   People, by nature, want the ability to choose.  Most people are comfortable choosing between two options.  If you only give them one option (“You need to have this done”), they will usually turn it into two options (1 – Get it done, or 2 – don’t get it done).  They want a choice.   If you give them three or more options, that gives them too many choices and they will often choose to do nothing, or choose to take time to think about it.  That is not usually the desired result.

If given a choice between two viable options, people will often choose one of them.  That is good news for salesmen. An approach that I have often used is to tell the customer: “We have two ways that we can go about this.”  I then explain the benefits of the most expensive one, followed by the benefits (and limitations) of the cheaper alternative.  I then gauge their reactions before giving them the prices for each option.  I always list the most expensive first.  That is called bracketing up for money, which I will explain in another article.

So, if you notice, the customer has two choices – both of which involve having me address their needs.  There is no “wait and think about it” option.  In sales, you are always looking for the immediate commitment.

Continue to build value – Often times, the services that we offer can seem very similar to our competition.  In order to differentiate yourself from your competitors, you need to sell your customer on the one thing your competitors do NOT have: you.  What makes you different (better) than that other company who does the same type of service?  I do not want it to be that you are less expensive.  That is too easy to say, and too hard to accomplish.  It is also not the mark of a true professional salesman.

You need to know what your competition is offering and offer more.  Even things that seem silly to you will often mean a lot to the customer.  Sometimes, your service is very similar, so in order to build value, you need to mention things that the others will likely do, but neglect to mention.  Often it’s that silly little step that you mention that they other guys don’t that will give you the job.  Your customer needs to know that you are thorough and are going to great lengths to give them the service that they need.

Focus on the customer’s needs – I went into this a bit in the last article, but let me expand on the concept a little.  If you have been listening to them, you should have an idea of what’s important to them.  Still, it’s often a good idea to ask questions.  The right questions can accomplish a few things:

• It let’s the customer know that you care about what’s best for them
• It tells the customer that you’ve been paying attention
• It opens the door to explore options
• Helps to set you apart from the competition

An example of this might be: “So, if I understand you correctly, you want…, while…, without having to worry about…, and you want it done ASAP.  Am I on the right track?”  Then you can follow it up with letting him/her know that you have a couple of ways to accomplish those things and go on to tell them what those options are and ask which one he/she feels will work best for him/her.  Believe me when I say that not nearly enough salesmen do this, and it is very powerful.

Build a lasting impression – When I was in the field, the one thing I tried to accomplish more than anything else was having people call the company that I worked for and asking for me.  You want to make more money than anyone else at your company?  The best way to do that is build a list of repeat customers.  There are a lot of ways to do that, but I am focusing here on building a lasting impression.

One thing I see a lot is people getting the okay to perform their service and switching to “let’s get it done and get out”.  That is the worst thing you can do.  During the entire time, you need to keep the customer’s interest.  Interact with them while you are working, do little freebees for them, pet their dog/cat, etc.  By the time you are done with your service and are leaving, they should be asking you to stay for a beer or cookies or something.

After you leave their home or business, your customers will have three ways to remember you:

1. By looking at the work you did (or results of your service)
2. By the new hole in their pocketbook
3. By what they remember of you

Two out of the three of these needs to be good.  It is the difference between calling your company to complain and calling your company to ask for you to do more work for more money.  It is really that simple.

Finally there is one, VERY POWERFUL tool that you can use to accomplish all four objectives.

Be Creative!

Find new and innovative ways to service your customer’s needs.  Most salesmen in the service industry all focus on the same standard way of going about doing things.  If you can approach it from a different angle that can save the customer time, inconvenience or money, it will speak volumes!  Here is an example:

Mrs. Smith had a sewer main back-up.  A plumber came out and cleared her main, but said that it was in bad shape and needs to be replaced.  This kind of scared her, so she decided to get a few estimates.  She calls out 3 plumbers and tells them she is collecting estimates to replace her sewer.  All three plumbers give her an estimate to do just that.  She calls me out for her fourth and final estimate.  My first question is, “What makes you think you need a new sewer line?”  She tells me about the plumber telling her that it needed replacement.  It turns out that nobody has run a camera down her line to find out exactly what is going on. 

My next statement is obvious, right? “Well, I can replace your sewer line if you want, but there’s a really good chance that it’s unnecessary.  The only way to know for sure if you need an entirely new sewer line is to run a camera down the line and see what’s causing your problems.  The camera has a locator on the camera head, so I will know exactly where the problem is and how deep. You may just need a simple spot repair, which is a whole lot less expensive than a replacement.  I have a camera on my truck and can do the survey for you right now.  It’s $250, I can burn it to DVD for you, and if you have me do the repair, I will credit the camera survey back towards to cost of the repair.”

I may still not get the job, of course, but being creative and finding a way to start with a smaller scope of work that may save her a bunch of money has greatly improved my chances.  Is there still a chance that the line needs replacement?  Sure, but by offering to credit back the camera, I now have $250 worth of leverage to use to help me get the entire job.  Most importantly, I have a chance to get started and show off my stuff. :)

Hopefully that wraps up value based selling.  Stay tuned for another sales tips article coming soon!

Thank you for reading.
Steve

The Sales Triad – The First Impression and Beyond

I could not write a “Sales Tips” Blog without mentioning the first impression. Most people know that the first impression sets the tone for the rest of the sales call. A lot of people don’t give that fact the respect it deserves.

A prospective customer can tell so much about you from the first impression, that a bad one can be a deal breaker. There are many reasons for that, but in this article I am going to share with you one reason that has to do with another bit of technology. It is called the relationship triad. This actually has to do with friendship, but is also hugely in effect when it comes to sales. That’s why I renamed it for the title of this article. :)

It is very simple. As with all triads, it has three parts:

Respect
Trust
Friendship

Pay close attention to the order. It all starts with respect. You cannot really trust someone that you do not respect and you cannot really share a friendship with someone whom you do not trust. Most people don’t think about this, but if you take a second and give it some thought, you will know that it is true. So what does that have to do with sales? Am I telling you that you have to be friends with all of your prospects or customers? Of course not. I mean, it would sound all nice and warm and fuzzy to say that, but I am not here to blow smoke. I am a realist and I know that you are not going to be friends with even a small percentage of your customers. I AM saying however, that you need to develop a degree of trust to be an effective sales person. For that, you will need to first to develop… yep, respect!

Okay, so you are on your way to a sales call and you’re wondering, “So how do I build respect?” There are two very easy and effective ways to do that:

1 - Give respect (You need to give respect to get it back)
2 – Show that you respect yourself (no one will respect someone who does not respect themselves)

“Okay, give respect. I can do that. No problem. Show that I respect myself? Hmmmmmm…” Let me give you an example of what I mean. Those of you who have read some of my earlier articles or my bio, know that I am a service plumber. People call me out to their homes to give them a free estimate on fixing things like leaks under their sink, dripping faucets, water heaters that no longer give out hot water, etc (a sales call). It is my job to convince them that I am the one who should fix that problem. It is also my job to find and fix every bit of plumbing that they have in their home that is broken, or about to be broken – even the stuff under their house that they don’t know about (yet). I have three rules:

1 - I never sell a customer something they don’t need (unless I tell them they don’t need it)
2 – I make sure that nobody can ever come after me and say they could have done what I did better.
3 – I will not compromise my integrity.

So anyway, I want you to think “plumber” and tell me the picture you have in your head. Got it? Good, Now I will explain how I go about a service sales call and point out the different areas where I build respect.

First of all, I make sure I arrive on time. If I am going to be late for a sales call for any reason, I call my customer and tell them (respect for their time). Keep in mind that if you have an appointment window for a sales call between 9-10am, at 8:55, your customer is wondering where you are. At 9:01, you are late. Even though you are within your window, your customer is left waiting. Calling them before your window and telling them exactly when you will be there is showing respect for their time.

When I arrive, I do so in a clean truck (respecting myself). I NEVER park in their drive way. I park on the street (respecting their property). I knock on the door (or ring the bell). When they open the door, they will find me standing on their porch, a respectful distance from the door, with my body at roughly a 45 degree angle to their door (this is a passive, yet not disinterested stance that eases their mind a bit, and gives them some breathing room (showing respect)). They will look first at my smiling face (a salesman must always smile!), then to my clean boots (showing respect for myself) as I introduce myself. My standard introduction is usually, “Hi, John? I am Steve from Allstar Plumbing. I am here to fix your plumbing for you.” Polite, courteous and professional. Older people I will often call them by their last name (“Mr. Smith”). The other thing I did here was that by saying, “I am here to fix your plumbing for you”, I took the first step towards getting their mind off “estimate” and toward “fix” and I let them know that I was doing it for them. This is a sales technique that is closely tied to “the power of yes”, which I will write about at another time.

As you can see, I have barely opened the door, and already I am building respect. As I am introducing myself, the prospect is looking me over. My hand is extended in an invitation to shake hands (giving respect). Actually it is extended at about a 45 degree angle, so that they can see the palm. Guess what? Yep, my hands are spotlessly clean. I repeat, I am a plumber and my hands are spotlessly clean! My face is also clean. In fact, my uniform consists of a white uniform shirt, which is also spotless and I smell, ever so slightly, of cologne (I stress slightly). This is all showing a respect for myself that just screams “PROFESSIONAL”.

Remember that picture of the plumber that you had in your head earlier? How am I comparing?

Okay, so I shook hands with the prospective customer. I wait for them to invite me in. I will just stand there, wiping my feet on the porch mat until they invite me in (respect for their home). I will follow them to whatever they want to show me and I will listen. I need to digress for a moment here and stress the importance of listing when it cones to sales. The number one rule of sales is “listen”. It is what separates the pros from the amateurs. Not only does it show respect for the customer, but it gives you ammunition to use for the close. I had a job I went to about a month ago. The family had 4 toilets in their home (including the one in the back house), and none of them flushed correctly. These folks had two other plumbers at their home. Both told them that they needed to replace all of the toilets. I was the third one to show up. I let them take me around and show me all the toilets. They explained their concerns about how they operated and I listened. I spent ½ hour just listening to them talk about the toilets. I would offer answers to their questions and such, but mostly I listened. From listening, I decided on the toilets that I thought would work best for them. They decided to go with 3 of them for now and signed a contract with me, on the spot, for over $1800. Just a few days ago, they called me back to have me replace the fourth. Why did I get the sale? I was likely the most expensive estimate. It was because I listened and was able to, not only make them feel that I cared about addressing their needs, but through listening, I was able to quote different toilets that would better work for them (and helped mask the difference in price).

Another way that you build respect with your sales prospects is by having confidence in your product. They have to believe that you are the one who is the expert at whatever it is they need done. They will respect you a LOT more if they believe that you know what you are doing. You have to be confident. Sales is all about confidence. The thing is that you don’t need to be confident that you know how to fix something or build something or whatever. You just need to have the confidence that you can figure it out. I have often been heard to say that “there is no such thing as plumbing I can’t fix”. It is not because I claim to know everything. It is because when I come across something I don’t know, I am confident that I can figure it out.

So, to get back on track here… The important thing is that once you start building respect, you cannot mess it up. Once I get the contract signed for the first scope of work, I go out to my truck, take off my uniform shirt, so that I am working in my (plain white) t-shirt, put on latex gloves, get my tools and parts, etc., and get to work. I make sure I use drop cloths and whatnot to make sure I do not make a mess, I clean up when I am done and always try to keep the area where I am working clean and tidy. If something frustrates me, I will go outside and have a smoke, but I will not get mad at the plumbing in front of the customer. I will let them know that this is a particularly stubborn xxxx and apologize for the extra time it’s taking, but that builds value, so that is fine. All the time I am there, I do nothing to let the respect slide. When I am done with the job, I go back to my truck and put my uniform shirt back on, after making sure that I am otherwize clean, so that when I aproach the customer with the bill (or the estimate for the other work they should be doing while I am there) I am back in uniform and looking just the way I was when I arrived. I am showing respect for them in that I am taking the time to make sure that I am in a presntable state to discuss business.

Trust will begin to form before you even begin work, but will build fast once the customer sees a product. They see that you did a great job of addressing what they wanted addressed. As long as you do not do something to violate their trust, you have free reign to sell them anything you think they should buy. That's where the oportunity to upsel comes in. Just do not violate their trust or game over. That is sales: it takes a lot of work to get a customer where you want them, but just 1 wrong move to screw it all up.

The company I work for had a customer for years that was absolutely loyal. They would call us and only us for anything she needed. She had a big, old house that she gave us thousands of dollars over the years to fix. Small things like faucets and big things like a sewer main replacement. We had her trust and her loyalty. She would do whatever we recommended. One day, we sent someone out to her home to take a look at a problem she thought she was developing. It turned out to be a non-plumbing related issue, but the tech charged her a $48 diagnostic fee. We lost that customer over $48. We were within our policy to charge her, but we shouldn’t have. It showed no respect for the loyalty she gave us. One of our managers personally returned the check to her, but by that time it was too late. Never violate the customers trust, or you will never get it back.

I hope these are helping you to sell more and for more money. I think I will write my next Sales Tips article on “Value-based” selling. See you soon. Go sell stuff!

Sales Tips for Sevice Professionals

Welcome to Sales Tips for Service Professionals. Most of the articles here will be focused on sales techniques and methodologies for those of us in the service industry: Contractors, electricians, plumbers, handymen, waiters... anyone who sells a service. Don't get me wrong, if you sell a product (other than service), you will find a ton of information that will help you to increase your sales (and consequently, your income), but my focus is on service professionals.